Jan. 9th, 2010

A while back, back when Middle Brother was still living with me and the Engineer lived in an apartment upstairs, one of the burners on the stove went tits up.

It started out slow. Sometimes it would just be unreliable and you would have to mess with it a bit to get it to work properly. I had a great pair of metal tongs I used to use to lift the coil up and kind of wiggle it into a different position, upon which- electric heat with which you may cook all manner of delicious cuisines!

It's sucky enough that one of our stove burners died, but what made matters worse is that it was my favorite burner. Any one who is really into cooking will always have certain favored implements, for a variety of reasons. I have a go-to, all-purpose chef's knife. Slightly smaller than normal chef's knives, so it fits in my hand better, but wicked sharp as the devil. I have the wooden spoon of perfect length. My copper bottom saucepot that is older than most of you reading this and doesn't have a real handle anymore, but it's the absolute best for making a roux.

On our stove, there are two big burners and two little ones. One big and little in the front of the stove, one little and one big in the back. Due to my height and the weird idiosyncratic habit I have of only being able to cook barefoot, my favorite burner was the front right one, a big one. I very rarely use small cooking ware, so it always had a big burner. And being already pretty short, then adding having no shoes on, I need something I can reach and tend to constantly without straining and possibly getting burned.

Of course, this is the burner most used and the first one to die on our stove. I never called it in to maintenance because we had a lot going on and I didn't have the time or energy to devote to a hardcore campaign of Come fix my shit, asshole. Then the holidays were coming and I didn't want to chance my stove being wonky (or being absent) during any part of them. And besides, I told myself frequently, I've got three more burners and they all seem to work fine!

The past couple of weeks, I've been noticing the back left burner (other big one and the one I shifted my affections to when my favorite shit itself) was getting a little tempermental about things. Sometimes it wouldn't heat evenly, sometimes it would just stop being hot. Really annoying stuff. Then, last weekend, I was boiling a pot of potatoes to make mashed potatoes and when I went to check on it, I saw that it was dead cold.

I jiggled the burner (I no longer have the metal tongs, my brother took those, so now I have to use two wooden spoons), I thumped the stovetop. Nothing. So, I turned the room blue with profanity and moved the pot to another burner so I could at least finish making dinner. Called maintenance that night and got told that because it wasn't an emergence, the maintenance man wouldn't get the message until Monday morning. Fantastic, yeah yeah. I know the drill, lady.

It's Friday. That was Sunday. Neither hide nor hair of ye olde maintenance man. We've had a lot of delivery stuff this week (one of which is the sushi place that actually delivers and is actually really, really good!) and I've been grouchy about the entire situation. I need to call them again tomorrow, just to start my tired harassment campaign of fix my goddamn shit, asshole. It's tiring and tiresome.

I've been in this apartment since 2001, through multiple owners and various other tenants. The first owner was really great, the second one a bit lackluster, but the third is one is just terrible. The building is kind of falling apart, our rent keeps going up in the name of renovation- but no real effort seems to have been put into anything. They've started letting questionable tenants in now (including the woman who lives catty-corner from us, who is extremely loud and completely cray cray).

It's a shame because it's a fantastic neighborhood and dead center for traveling to all the places I need to travel to in my daily, umm, travels. The lease is up in May and I kept saying that I wanted us to look for another place, but with the way our money currently is (my hours got cut at work and it's put a bad ding in my finances), it's not really possible. I keep telling myself I can hold out another year. I've been here almost ten, after all, what's another year? I can do this.

But, if they don't fix my fucking stove or give me a new one, BUT QUICK, I am going to seriously cut a motherfucking bitch. You don't take away a fatgirl foodie's stove, not when she looks at cooking as a way of not killing people relaxing. That shit is not right.

I would gloat over the fact that the oven is still perfectly functioning and therefore, I am able to make all the damn bread I please, but I am not going to spit in the eye of the Fates. I have also contemplated sabatoging the stove and claiming it is COMPLETELY BROKEN COME FIX MY SHIT IT IS AN EMERGENCY I HAVE NO STOVE, but the Engineer says that is a bad idea.